The Conversation of Fox and Wolf
by RainbowNoms
Summary: When the fight is over, when there's nothing left to prove, when it's all said and done, how will you react? (Spiritual sequel to my old one-shot Equals, and inspired by The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion)


This was it.

His life had flashed, his lungs had filled with blood, he had prepared himself to see the last thing he would ever see: the red dwarf Solar, as red as the pool spreading around him. And so he looked on, taking it in as blackness soon surrounded the shining disc. Then, covered it as the final breath started to leak out.

 _This is it…_

Then…gone.

But…no! It was more like…just blinking. He was looking at Solar again. But with…so much more energy. His strength back. His breathing stable. His pain...gone.

"Aw, fuck, man!" came to his ears, which perked towards the noise. His enemy was swearing at something.

The listener sat up...his body feeling strangely weightless as he did so. He looked towards the swearing, head cocked sideways as he spotted not one of his enemy, but two. One of them lying motionless on the ground, just as he had been moments before, the pool of blood around his enemy eerily the same size as his own. The copy stood, though, paws on his waist, the head shaking, the ears back. His enemy stared at his enemy's dead copy.

 _Then that must mean…_ Yup, it did, as the listened turned around, looking right into his own still, lifeless emerald eyes. They did not look back. They just looked.

He didn't swear like his enemy had, though. He took it quietly as he went to look at his enemy again. So they were in some kind of afterlife, apparently. Strange, though. Ghosts were supposed to be transparent, right? But as he looked at his enemy, at his own paws…as solid as they were in life. Or at least, old life. But he could still feel everything, the sharpness of the air, the rugged ground, the warmth of Solar, hell, even a heartbeat. Seriously. Where WAS he?

"Wolf…" he said, wondering if they were at least in the same place. When his enemy turned at the noise, acknowledging the voice, this theory was confirmed. Although strangely, his eyepatch was missing, and so was his eye injury. Two lavender eyes stared back, the disbelief of his own death still written in them.

"You too, huh, Fox?" came the response as his arms crossed. The vulpine didn't have much of an answer to this. He simply rose to his feet (HIS feet, not the robotic replacements) and stood reverently next to his own dead body.

"…We're dead…but…" Fox observed, shaking just a bit as it started to truly hit him. Wolf looked on solemnly, letting him come to terms in his own way. "…where ARE we?"

Wolf shrugged his shoulders, turning away, back to his own corpse. "I…can't answer."

The wind continued to blow in the background, through their fur, as they stood in silence. It was funny. He and Wolf had been rivals since high school, through the Academy, through the Lylat Wars…and they both talked a big talk, but the vulpine had never believed they'd _actually_ kill each other. Yet there was the proof. Both their bodies, their spread-eagled forms almost mirror images of each other, left there on the Macbeth soil.

The way the weather was turning, their bodies would be buried by the time Solar set. Unless someone was coming right that minute, it's likely they'd never be found. The thought of his team, of the whole of Lylat, just…never knowing…paralyzing to the vulpine. Whatever form he was in now…it was capable of shivering. Fox turned away.

"I…I can't…" he muttered to himself. "Shall we walk, Wolf? I can't look at myself anymore."

The lupine nodded. A whole life of hiding emotions had trained him well, but even that stone wall was starting to crack. They turned around, walking anywhere but there, through the arid Macbeth wasteland that Corneria's mining had turned it into. Somehow, the six inches separating their height seemed that much longer.

After about five minutes of silence, Wolf spoke up, half-jokingly, paws in his pocket. "…So…isn't this the part where you go to heaven and I go to hell?"

Fox took a deep breath, then shook his head, smiling uncomfortably. "I…uh…I didn't even think you believed in heaven and hell."

"I still haven't decided. We're still in neither," Wolf pointed out, shrugging. "I'll say this much, though. _Someone's_ up there pulling the strings. Too much crazy shit happens in this universe for that not to be the case."

Fox just looked at his enemy, head recoiled back a bit. "Really…Wolf O'Donnell, a religious man. In all honesty, I never would have guessed."

"Not religious, pup. I don't worship anything. Just…acknowledging something's there." He paused for a moment. "Someone brought us here, anyway. Healed our wounds. Let us walk through…limbo, I guess."

It was true. They were walking, and it felt as if they'd never get tired. They could seemingly circumnavigate the planet without breaking a sweat.

"…But you knew. You figured there was a God. And yet you still became…" he hesitated.

"Just say it, Fox. Evil. Destructive. Law-breaking. Leader of a criminal empire so large it rivals a small nation," Wolf spoke flatly.

"…But religions teach peace, respect, right? Serving a God. So…why?"

"Pup, I told you I ain't religious. Besides…why should I bother serving a God who throws shitball after shitball at me? Ever since I was a fucking child. No…he doesn't deserve it."

Fox looked straight ahead, avoiding Wolf's eyes, processing this point.

"Life IS shit, though…that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to make it better-"

"Look, I accepted it long ago, Fox. It's far too late," Wolf sighed. "I'm pretty clearly headed to hell, but with the life I lived, at least I'll go in a legend."

"…Doesn't the fact that we're still here mean that it's not too late?" Fox pointed out.

Wolf stopped walking, stood still on top of a small hill, his arms crossed as he stared at Solar. "…I don't know, pup…but if you're right, that God's chasing the wrong tail."

As Fox caught up, the lupine starting walking again, down the other side.

"What I want to know is why _you're_ still around. You, with all your talk of morality, and being a hero, and all that filtered bullshit," Wolf kept his eyes away. The vulpine's continued presence seemed to be wearing on him. "Go, go have your perfect eternity."

"Wolf, come on…you of all people know our job isn't sinless. When…" he sighed, the words of admittance catching. "When you're the front line for…an entire goddamn military…even when you tell yourself the cause is good, when anything's better than Andross reigning…the lives I destroyed, Wolf, so many of them reduced to piss in the space wind. And you want to know the best part? Pepper fucking _counted_. Paid us by how many we destroyed."

Wolf looked at him wordlessly.

"64 credits. 64 per fucking life. That's how much they were worth, apparently," Fox finished with an agitated sigh, his head continually shaking.

When the lupine learned this, he looked, somehow…genuinely disgusted. Disgusted, and left without a response. He had always known Pepper was an asshole, but just…damn. "Pup…I know killing sucks sometime, but the money…that's the general being a bitch, not-"

"Oh, save it. It's just hollow, guilt-filled rationalization. That's all it ever was." The vulpine's paws were in his pockets and his eyes were at the ground. He sighed once more, a morose, drawn-out thing. "They all called me a hero, but I never felt like one.…I pry deserve to burn just as much as you."

The silence came back, taking over their walk with cruel efficiency. They pressed on, though, even as they reached a more mountainous area; it seemed the only way they could get tired was emotionally.

It gave Wolf plenty of time to think, though. Maybe he had taken for granted his hatred of Fox while never truly understanding his position. The lupine was hated by all, and that was liberating! It allowed him to do what he wanted, what he needed without care, without dealing with PR, or morality, or anything like that. That's not to say Wolf enjoyed killing, of course; compared to Leon, the lupine was a fucking saint. In fact, he was much more apt to show mercy than anyone would ever believe.

After all, how else had Fox lived as long as he had?

Many times, the lupine had acquired, or indeed simply stumbled upon info that could have easily allowed him to erase his rival from the mortal world long ago. Nothing truly had been him from simply firebombing Sauria, or sic-ing his best sniper on the vulpine during one of the countless, sickeningly saccharine parades and award ceremonies the Cornerian government had put on for Star Fox, or even just putting a laser in the back of his head when the poor sod was at the grocery store with that Krystal wench. That had been a strange chance sighting, Wolf remembered clearly.

But indeed, he hadn't. Instead, he had chosen to save Fox from the swarm of Aparoids, give him fucking life advice, and help save Corneria while fully knowing he wouldn't get an ounce of the credit. Countless reports shredded and burned, countless scouts silenced, countless opportunities hidden from Andross, missed, or simply ignored. Countless excuses made, imaginary reasons why foolproof schemes would fail.

But all for what? Just for them to finally be equal, lost forever, buried both in the soil and the shadow of the valley of death?

They reached one of the mountain peaks, both of them pausing, knowing the other would pause as well without question. Their eyes gazed out across the apotheosis of all deserts, tracking the dust eddies blowing across the surface, tracing lazy circles in the dirt. They sat on the rocks.

"Listen…Fox…" the lupine spoke slowly, his nose still pointed out towards the desert. "No matter what, pup…at least you were never in it alone. At least you had people looking up to you. Relying on you. Counting on you. If anyone ever looked up to me, it was out of fear, not admiration. That's gotta count for somethin', right?"

Fox could hear the shrug in his counterpart's words, even though he wasn't looking at him. The vulpine's ears went back, and his head went down as he sighed. "Yeah…I guess. Too bad they'll never know where I went."

Wolf nodded gently, keeping his face towards the distance.

"Besides, after I fucked up with Krystal, they all left one by one anyway." He looked up towards the sky. "Maybe this is for the best. Sure seems like my time's come and gone."

"You spent it better than I did, pup."

Fox's tail swished once, his eyes glazed over with reflection. As much as he hated to admit it, his old rival…his old friend…was probably right. Memories crashed over him like waves, like the gusts of wind this high up. Him pulling a seven-year-old Wolf out of the gutter, giving him a place to sleep and a hot meal for that horrid nigh that neither of them were too young to truly understand. The times he and James truly were a second home for that poor wolf pup, his parents high, arguing, abusive, all around awful.

His tenth birthday party, the both of them romping around in Flyer's Park, long after cake, ice cream, and sunset had come to pass. The pure bliss of that day, the antithesis of his twelfth birthday, same place, but vastly different as James' death and the emotional turmoil that followed hung over both their moods and their actions. The first fight they ever had, the first of many.

High school, the beginning of Fox overshadowing Wolf completely. Graduating higher, being more popular, still having the advantage of at least a guardian in Peppy, not having to go hungry, not having to steal for just enough to buy the cheapest of foods. Graduating from the Academy, while Wolf flunked out and fled in shame.

But who could forget the biggest advantage of them all: being the son of the most famous fucking pilot on the planet?

"…You know…maybe. But if I did…it's only because I was given the chance."

Once again, the vulpine didn't even have to look over to know that Wolf's mind was on the same memory as his own. Flyer's Park, twelve years old.

"You still did well for yourself, you know that, right? You didn't even graduate the Academy, and, well…you still almost killed me a couple times before. You weren't famous with the public, but you owned and ran a literal empire. You could have laid down and given up at any point in time, but you never did. You built yourself up from the hate child of an abusive relationship to both a criminal mastermind and a damn fine pilot. The law doesn't apply here anymore. You were successful. In your own way."

The lupine had to swallow. Once, then twice, then three times.

"…I don't know what's waiting for us anymore," the vulpine said after a long, deep breath, leaning back on his paws. "But if there really is some kind of heaven somewhere, you'd better believe I'm putting in a good word for you."

Wolf glanced over at his friend, almost surprised to see those green eyes staring back into his own. And, despite everything…smiled.

"Thanks, kid."

Fox nodded, then stood, descending the mountain, going down the other side.

This time, Wolf did not follow. His ears listened to the vulpine's receding footsteps without moving, until the high winds that would have frozen his old body solid blocked them out completely. Without questioning it, he knew that turning around was pointless. Even if he looked straight down the mountain, even if his vision was perfect, he'd never see Fox down there.

Instead, he watched the desert, swishing his tail.

Smiling softly and hopefully.

Waiting.


End file.
